Án Lv 5^VIII (Án 5)

Meyjar spurðu,         er mik fundu,
hvíthaddaðar:         ‘hvaðan komtu ferfaldr?’
En ek svaraða         silki-Gunni
heldr hæðinni:         ‘hvaðan er logn úti?’

Hvíthaddaðar meyjar spurðu, er mik fundu: ‘hvaðan komtu ferfaldr?’ En ek svaraða {heldr hæðinni silki-Gunni}: ‘hvaðan er logn úti?’

The fair-haired maidens asked, when they met me: ‘Where did you come from, fourfold?’ But I answered {the rather mocking silk-Gunnr <valkyrie>} [WOMAN]: ‘Where does the calm outside come from?’

Mss: 343a(84r), 109a Iˣ(10r) (Án)

Readings: [3] ‑haddaðar: so 109a Iˣ, ‘haddaraðar’ 343a    [4] komtu: ‘komti’ 343a, komst 109a Iˣ

Editions: Skj AII, 320, Skj BII, 340, Skald II, 182; FSN 2, 343, FSGJ 2, 385; Edd. Min. 97.

Context: Án stays the summer with a farmer whose daughter is named Drífa ‘Snow-storm’, the girl to whom Ketill was previously making advances (cf. Context to st. 4). Án is wearing four layers of clothing and is neither well-dressed nor good-looking. One day he meets Drífa outdoors. She is in the company of three other girls and is not only very pretty but also very elegantly dressed. Drífa and her companions make fun of Án’s garb, and Drífa asks him: ‘Hvaðan gekktu at nú, ferfaldr?’ ‘Frá smiðum,’ sagði Án ‘“From where did you come now, fourfold?” “From work,” said Án’. The farmer orders the girls to stop making fun of Án, and then Án recapitulates his exchange with the girls in this stanza, which probably plays on the name Drífa; cf. Note to l. 8 below.

Notes: [All]: The metre of this stanza is fornyrðislag. — [All]: According to Ólafur Haldórsson (1973, 81), this stanza originated as a riddle about a rainbow and a billow on the sea in calm weather, presumably because there are similarities in diction between it and some of the riddles in Heiðr and because ll. 3-4 and 8 may carry double meanings (see Notes to l. 3 and l. 8 below). Ólafur suggested that the author of the saga may have been inspired by the word ferfaldr ‘fourfold’ (l. 4) in the original stanza (where it would refer to the colours of the rainbow) to invent the motif of Án’s four layers of clothing. This hypothesis is attractive but cannot be verified. It is more likely that some of the terms used in the stanza to refer to the young women draw on associations with riddles for natural phenomena in order to play on the basic (common noun) sense of the name Drífa. — [3] hvíthaddaðar ‘fair-haired’: This reading from 109a Iˣ and other mss is certainly correct; 343a has hvíthaddaraðar. The form ‑haddaðr ‘-haired’ is attested in other virtually synonymous compounds, which are used as epithets of girls and young women: e.g. bjarthaddað man ‘bright-haired maiden’, Gríp 33/6 (NK 169), bjarthadduð brúðr ‘bright-haired woman’, GunnLeif Merl I 77/7-8 and brúðir bleikhaddaðar ‘pale-haired women’, Gestumbl Heiðr 17/1-2 (Heiðr 64). There is a particular similarity between the last-named riddle and the stanza from Án in that this stanza poses a question or questions, and the second question (ostensibly) concerns a natural phenomenon (logn, see Note to l. 8), as Gestumbl Heiðr 17 (the answer to the riddle is ‘swans’) and several other riddles in Heiðr do. — [4] komtu ‘did you come’: The reading komti (343a) is meaningless, the reading komst in 109a Iˣ is 2nd pers. sg. indic. m. v. of koma; the question hvaðan komst, ferfaldr may also be translated ‘Where did you escape from, fourfold?’ (cf. the expression komask af ‘escape (with one’s life)’). Previous eds have emended the reading komti (343a) to komtu ‘did you come’ (2nd pers. sg. pret. tense of koma + enclitic pers. pron. þú, cf. the form gekktu (2nd pers. sg. pret. tense of ganga + þú) in the corresponding prose passage quoted above in Context). The emendation komtu differs from the reading komti only in the number of minims and is thus paleographically plausible. — [6] silki-Gunni ‘silk-Gunnr <valkyrie> [WOMAN]’: The woman-kenning silki-Gunnr is also attested in VíglÞ Lv 1/2^V (Vígl 3). The earliest kenning of this kind with silki as a determinant is found in a stanza ascribed to Kormákr (KormǪ Lv 32/6^V (Korm 51)): silki-Nanna ‘silk-Nanna <goddess>’. — [8] hvaðan er logn úti ‘where does the calm outside come from?’: This question is Án’s answer to Drífa’s query ‘Where do you come from?’ (l. 4). Heusler and Ranisch (Edd. Min. lxxiv) think that it is a nonsense question posed by Án in jest. Finnur Jónsson on the other hand proposed that Án’s question is a riddling and oblique allusion to the name Drífa, which, as a common noun, means ‘snow-storm’, and adduces the cpd logndrífa ‘snowfall in calm weather’ (Fritzner: logndrífa) as evidence for his interpretation (LH II, 145 and n. 4; Skj B). In this case the question hvaðan er logn úti mirrors Drífa’s query: (Drífa) ‘Where do you come from?’; (Án) ‘Where does Drífa (i.e. where do you) come from?’ In the context of the saga the correspondence between the adv. úti ‘outside’ in the prose passage (þat var einn dag, at Án mœtti úti Drífu karlsdóttur ‘It happened one day that Án met Drífa, the daughter of the farmer, outside’) and the adv. úti in the stanza could be an indication that Finnur Jónsson is correct in supposing that the word logn ‘calm’ alludes to Drífa. In this case the appearance of the adv. úti would not merely serve a rhythmical purpose in the line but would be an indication that Án is asking Drífa where she comes from and not posing a question about the origin of a weather phenomenon. The form of the question is reminiscent of several posed by Óðinn in Vafþr, e.g. sts 20/4-6, 22/4-6, 24/4-6, 26/4-6, 36/4-6, 46/4-6.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
6. NK = Neckel, Gustav and Hans Kuhn (1899), eds. 1983. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. 2 vols. I: Text. 5th edn. Heidelberg: Winter.
7. LH = Finnur Jónsson. 1920-4. Den oldnorske og oldislandske litteraturs historie. 3 vols. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Gad.
8. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
9. Edd. Min. = Heusler, Andreas and Wilhelm Ranisch, eds. 1903. Eddica Minora: Dichtungen eddischer Art aus den Fornaldarsögur und anderen Prosawerken. Dortmund: Ruhfus. Rpt. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
10. Internal references
11. (forthcoming), ‘ Anonymous, Áns saga bogsveigis’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=12> (accessed 20 April 2024)
12. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 367. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=23> (accessed 20 April 2024)
13. Hannah Burrows (ed.) 2017, ‘Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks 64 (Gestumblindi, Heiðreks gátur 17)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 428.
14. Not published: do not cite ()
15. Not published: do not cite ()
16. Edith Marold (ed.) 2022, ‘Kormáks saga 51 (Kormákr Ǫgmundarson, Lausavísur 32)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1114.
17. Klaus Johan Myrvoll (ed.) 2022, ‘Víglundar saga 3 (Víglundr Þorgrímsson, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1413.